Nick Oldham - Hidden Witness

Old man Costain rubbed his face continually, stretching his features. Monica stood there numb.

Henry took a deep breath. ‘Look, you don’t have to do this. I’ve got enough in terms of identification. The coroner will be happy with that.’

‘We want to see him,’ Costain said firmly.

‘OK, OK, but I need to reiterate…’

‘Reiterate nothing, Henry,’ Costain cut in. ‘We’re ready, so just do it.’

Henry tapped on the glass and the mortuary technician drew back the curtain.

‘I expect you’re pleased.’

Henry was outside in the mortuary car park, standing next to Costain at the Mercedes. Mrs Costain was already in the passenger seat, still as shell-shocked as she’d been in the viewing room, the death of her son probably not yet having hit her properly. She was shrouded in grey cigarette smoke.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You’ll be pleased, eh? Three Costains down…’

‘No, I’m not,’ Henry said.

‘Less trouble for you and the rest of the cops, though.’

‘Mr Costain, I’m truly sorry you’ve lost another son.’

‘Hey — not to mention my niece from the car crash. I don’t suppose you’ll be putting much effort into this, will you?’

‘I’ll tell you what pleases me: catching killers. I’ll put as much effort into this as I would any other murder — which means I’ll work around the clock until I get a result — OK?’

Costain shrugged, disbelief written all over his face. ‘You say he was with someone?’

‘It looks that way… two lots of chips, looks like he was walking across the car park with a mate, yes. But like you said already, you don’t know who he was out with. It’s vital we find this person, y’know? It could even be his killer, who knows?’

‘Have you been to the chippy? That might be a good start.’

‘Yes we have, but the chip shop owners are new and they don’t live over the shop like the last ones did, and they haven’t seen fit to give their name and address to the police as yet, so we can’t contact them.’

Costain considered the information, then said, ‘I’ll see what I can do — I honestly don’t know who Rory was with, but I’ll find out.’ He climbed into the Merc and the big car rolled smoothly away. Henry watched it go wondering which poor soul would end up with the unenviable task of being the family liaison officer. The role would have to be given to a seasoned detective, one who had the bottle to brave things out with the Costains, if they would even allow an FLO into their lives. Henry guessed there would be a huge firewall of reluctance from the family at having a cop assigned to them full-time.

Henry walked back to the mortuary where he found O’Connell inspecting Rory’s naked body. She was speaking into a hand-held tape recorder and stopped when she saw Henry.

‘What d’you think?’ she asked.

‘I think we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way in terms of the bodies and we should schedule the post-mortems for this afternoon. That way we can both get a few hours sleep. On top of that, I need to get a pre-briefing meeting together at eleven this morning, followed by a full murder squad briefing at noon.’

‘Not much sleep for you, then?’

‘Doubt if I’ll be going to bed at all.’

‘I’m not remotely sleepy, myself, so I don’t see bed as an option just yet… could you handle a coffee with me?’

Henry checked his watch, then looked at the dead boy. He was standing at his head at an angle of about forty-five degrees and his eyes caught something on the scalp. His brow furrowed and he stooped for a closer inspection.

‘Have you seen this?’ he asked. Without touching, he indicated what he was looking at. O’Connell came around to see.

‘Admittedly. I haven’t.’

They were looking at a recent cut on Rory’s head, just on the scalp line above his left eye, a thin red mark where it looked like something had struck him, or his head had struck something.

‘Could he have done that when he fell after being shot?’ Henry asked.

She pulled a face. ‘Not sure about that. Looks like he might’ve caught his head on something, a door maybe, possibly the sort of injury you get when you crack your head on a car bonnet, or something. Know what I mean?’

Henry’s mind stirred. ‘Unconnected with the murder?’

‘That’s an assumption I won’t make. I’ll present you with the facts as I see them after the PM.’

‘Fair enough.’ Henry said, unable to think it through, his mind just a mush now. ‘How about that coffee?’

‘Sorry about that.’ Henry slipped his mobile phone into his jacket pocket after having dropped a text to Kate telling her he would not be home for some hours yet, and could she sort out the last bits ’n’ bobs for the holiday. He added, ‘SOZ’, and put a whole bunch of kiss crosses, hoping to appease her a little.

‘Wife?’ O’Connell said.

He nodded. ‘Supposed to be off on a romantic break tomorrow. I said I’d be a bit of a Teflon pan and pass all this on to someone else, and I will,’ he said, meaning it, ‘but I’d like to get as much done as possible before I hand anything over. And I only turned out for one murder, not two.’

‘You’re just a man who can’t say no, aren’t you?’

He glanced at her, wondering just what he was doing here. They’d driven across town in their own cars to the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s on Preston New Road, both collected a McMuffin breakfast, hash brown and coffee at the drive-thru, then headed down to the seafront at Blackpool south where the prom meets Squires Gate Lane. They were on the car park adjacent to the go-kart track at Starr Gate, which was also the southernmost terminal of the famous Blackpool tram system that plied up and down the prom.

They’d eaten their breakfasts together in O’Connell’s Mazda RX8.

He tried to tell himself this was just a business chat in an unusual location to discuss unusual business — murder. But he was only half convinced by that argument.

It seemed all too easy in the cops — if you wanted it to be.

Throughout his entire career, now spanning thirty years plus, Henry had been amazed at just how easy it was to get laid. The situations, often dealing with vulnerable people, or those who just could not turn down a man in uniform or a smooth detective — and the relationships with colleagues, working strange hours, being involved in stressful situations — brought you close to people in an extraordinary, often sexual way. And since his early days as a rookie, right up until very recently, he had been an avid follower of his penis, and that relatively small piece of equipment had dragged him into hot water on too many occasions. It had taken him to a divorce, an often penniless existence in grubby flats, and now that he had fairly recently remarried Kate he had sworn he would never go down the route of weak flesh again.

Yet here he was — and nobody but a fool would say there was any other reason for him to be there sitting in O’Connell’s fancy sports car, other than to get his hands on her tits, which he had to admit were just about right.

‘Oh, I can say no if I want to,’ he said weakly, turning to her and going short of breath.

‘I’m not sure I can.’ She wound towards him and slid her right hand along his inner thigh, a movement that sent a shimmer up inside him, made him groan as a rush of blood left his head and coursed south. The hand moved further up, then even further and grabbed him through his jeans.

Henry pulled her to him and they kissed savagely, a moan escaping from O’Connell’s throat as her hand tightened on him. Henry’s left hand slid over her blouse. She fumbled for his zip. He could feel himself straining against his underwear, trapped at a wonky angle, desperate to be freed. As he heard the first unzipping noise, something came into his head that counteracted the testosterone, like oil on water.